“Eat it!” Rico shouted, his voice muffled by the solid light.

  Skye stared at the seed, dread twisting his stomach. He’d read about bizarre abilities in the library, about a man whose face rearranged itself uncontrollably, a girl who grew feathers inside her lungs and suffocated, and another who turned into ooze and died when he dissolved in the lake.

  “Eat it,” Redeyes urged. “What’s the worst that could happen? You’re not afraid of death. You’ve been craving it for days.”

  Steeling his resolve, Skye swallowed the seed. It shifted in his belly, swelling like a balloon before deflating while he clutched the chair’s arms. His breathing raced. His head grew faint as the world spun, then a faint, rhythmic badum-dum beat in the back of his mind.

  Desperate to end the strangeness, he channeled like he’d been taught at the academy. His arms suddenly felt inexplicably heavy, and he couldn’t loosen his grip on the chair as if his hands had been glued to the wood. Panicking, he looked down and screamed.

  His arms had sunk into the chair. Skin, hair, and muscle had merged seamlessly with the wood.

  “What’s happening to me?!” he cried, struggling in his seat, desperate to break free. The wood didn’t give.

  Luccello canceled the sphere just as Skye’s eyes welled with tears. Redeyes cackled in delight, cracking jokes about his misfortune, while the ominous badum-dum refused to cease.

  “Calm yourself, son,” Ku said, stepping beside him and pressing him gently back into the chair. “Breathe. This can be undone.”

  “He’s a fleshmaster like me!” Rico chirped excitedly.

  “What shall I fetch, master?” Pairi asked. “Thorns of Amikhail? Tarspawn’s blood? Shua tears?”

  “No need,” Ku said, examining Skye’s arms.

  Skye flinched, biting his lip, holding back a shriek. He imagined a future where his hands rotted, forcing him to amputate. Yet there was no pain, no blood, just the surreal horror of his condition.

  “For a firedancer, the Seed of Dusk would spark a flame; for a windrider, it’d blow a breeze,” Ku explained. “But this merger is deep. It is no trick of the Seed. You are not a typical human, Skye. Like me and my birds, and the magical beasts in the forest, you are a cosmic creature. You do not need astra to channel. Your body is an astrum.”

  Skye’s breath caught. The words should have brought joy, but there was nothing pleasing about being able to merge with furniture. “I want it off, I want it off now,” he pleaded, shaking his arms, trying to break free.

  “’Chair-boy’ has a nicer ring to it than dud, no?” Redeyes laughed.

  “Channel into your arms,” Ku instructed. “It’s as simple as flexing a muscle.”

  “I don’t know how!” Skye shouted.

  “You succeeded once,” Ku said patiently. “Pretend you’ve swallowed another seed. Clear your mind. Breathe. And draw the energy from your body into the contact area with the chair.”

  Skye began the breathing exercises, following Ku’s instructions. His arms sank further into the chair, blood and sinew giving way to wood that itched at his very bones.

  “It’ll be alright, son. You’re in control,” Ku said. “Now, pull up.”

  Skye hesitated, but something in Ku’s steady voice and warm smile inspired strength and confidence. Blocking out Redeyes’s taunts, he focused and pulled.

  In less than a minute, his arms were free. They were unscathed, unchanged. Even the chair returned to its original state, as though the merger had never happened.

  “Congratulations,” Ku said. “You’re a channeler.”

  “There’s nothing to celebrate!” Skye snapped, his blood boiling. “I just merged with a sooting chair! How is this trash ability supposed to help me?”

  “It’s not supposed to help. It’s a punishment. Same as the bell,” Redeyes said.

  “Perhaps there’s more to it,” Ku offered, growing a dew-heavy cyan flower atop his cane. “Here, try to merge with this.”

  Skye slapped the flower away. “What’s the point?” he yelled, his voice cracking as he fought back tears. He’d felt more hopeful when he thought he couldn’t channel at all. “How am I supposed to make it to Kastrala now?”

  “You were never meant to,” Redeyes said.

  He paced around the room, gripping his head to keep it from splitting. “How will I find the Keeper of Secrets like this? How am I supposed to save anyone?”

  “You won’t.”

  “Calm down, son.”

  “Don’t tell me to calm down!” Skye snapped at the aloof old man. “You have no idea what’s at stake! This isn’t just about me or my curse. The wardens are planning to attack the city with an army of elexii. Thousands will die, and there’s nothing I can do to stop them!”

  Ku’s expression hardened, his grip tightening on his cane. “When will this happen?”

  “I don’t know!” Skye threw his hands up in frustration. “I don’t know who the wardens are, or who’s backing them, or why they’re doing this. But I’ve seen them. I know I’ve seen them. I’m not mad! They killed my teammates! And every time I’ve tried to warn someone, they called me a liar, beat me, and kicked me out!”

  “I won’t let this attack happen,” Ku spoke firmly, a spark of anger in his eyes.

  “Master Ku… we can’t stray far from the house,” Luccello cautioned.

  Ku spared the alabaster ruff a glance. “I’ll find a way.”

  Skye laughed bitterly. “No, you won’t! You’ll forget this conversation the moment my bell rings, just like everyone else. And then everyone’ll die.” His voice cracked as he clenched his fists, wanting to punch something. “What’s the point in even trying? Why am I fighting something I can’t sooting stop?” He paused, his shoulders sagging. “Redeyes is right. I should’ve given up and died a long time ago. All I’ve done is make it worse for myself by trying.”

  “Giving up is never the answer,” Ku said firmly. “As long as we breathe, hope must light our path.”

  “There’s no such thing as hope!” Skye’s frustration exploded into a shout. “We’re all going to die. There’s no difference between us and a rotten rat’s corpse. We’re just chemicals and dust in the wind. None of this mess matters!”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Tell him about it,” Redeyes urged. “Make him see.”

  “Your life has value, Skye, and so does mine,” Ku said, unfazed. “Your struggles have meaning. We are not soulless items. We exist for a purpose.”

  Skye and Redeyes laughed in unison. It was the same rubbish Doctor Stenser had spouted in Troqua. He’d ruminated about the belief that people chose their reasons to live since he’d heard it. And the more he did, the more wrong it felt.

  “He’s insane.”

  “You’re not making sense, old man.”

  Ku didn’t flinch.

  “What you’re saying is only true for people like you,” Skye said. “People who are free, who have options; applying it to me is not fair!” Skye’s voice shook as he continued. “I was tortured for days! My teammates were slaughtered for no reason. And I’m not the only one who suffers in silence. Families flee to the Deeps to escape their debtors and never return. Miners die from exhaustion all the time. What choices does a hungering and petrifying child in the Coals have?”

  “Absolutely none.”

  “We don’t have the luxury of deciding what we want to do,” Skye went on. “The choice has already been made for us; the only thing left is to strive until we die.”

  “He knows his beliefs are false. He only claims them because they soothe him. Because they strengthen the illusion that he’d earned his happiness.”

  “We don’t even know how many people are suffering right now,” Skye went on. “Millions died alone with no one to remember them. And years later, after we’ve rotted, no one will remember us either.” Hyperventilating and shaking, he collapsed onto the sofa, wiping at his tears. “I can’t think of a single thing worth living for.”

  The birds looked at him with pitying or repulsed eyes, heavy with judgement. Ku rocked in his chair, gazing at an eclipse of moths that swarmed a glowing fruit hanging from the ceiling like a lantern. His vacant stare and silence confirmed that the old man had nothing useful to say.

  Skye had had enough of this loathsome treehouse. The rain still poured outside, but he stood and headed for the exit.

  “I was your age when I saw my father get killed,” Ku said, breaking the silence.

  Skye paused at the door but didn’t turn.

  “We’d been running for weeks. Hunted like game. Our home was already ash, with my mother’s charred bones buried underneath the rubble.”

  Redeyes groaned. “Leave. Do you really want to hear his stupid sob story?”

  “They trailed us into the forest. My siblings and I hid in the trees while they tortured my father below, demanding to know where we were. That was the first time I asked myself the same question you’re asking now: What’s the point of all this suffering? If I’d been brave, I might have climbed down and offered myself to save him from all the pain. But I was a child and a coward. All I could do was watch and pray it ended quickly.” Ku’s voice faltered. “They killed him anyway. Then they left seeking more prey, laughing all the while.”

  Skye turned, his stomach twisting. “Who were they?”

  “Soldiers from a long- forgotten kingdom,” Ku said, eyes distant. “I survived, but a part of me died that night. I spent years searching for answers, but all I heard was, ‘Forget the past and live for the present.’” He stopped, swallowing a lump in his throat, his eyes turning red and teary. “My father was a great man, loving, charitable, respected by all. Forgetting him felt like treason, like hiding in a tree, hoping they finish him quickly before I’m spotted.”

  He wiped his eyes and rocked in his chair for a long moment.

  “And then what happened?” Skye asked quietly.

  Ku smiled, his expression softening as if he saw something beautiful. “I met Neera. She was lovelier than anyone I’d ever seen, with a heart so kind, it could warm a moon. Like me, she’d been orphaned young, yet unlike me, she never abandoned her smile. I found it strange. So strange in fact, that I gathered enough courage to go ask her. A couple of years later, we were married.” He closed his eyes, a smile plastered on his face.

  “What did she tell you?” Skye asked, his curiosity piqued despite himself.

  “That her people’s stories were about them, not her,” Ku said, his tone reverent. “That they’d moved from this realm to the next, taking with them the choices they made in this one.”

  “Next realm?” Skye asked, frowning.

  He’d read about this concept. Some scholars believed all living creatures had spirits, though they couldn’t agree on their fate. Some claimed these souls returned to the Void, dissolving into nothingness, others spoke of frozen hells where the evil suffered for eternity. Many Wells of Souls were discussed too as great gatherings of those gone, while others strongly believed in reincarnation.

  None of these theories made sense to him. “What difference does another life make if I’m spending this one struggling for no reason?”

  Ku stroked his beard. “Because the choices you make in this life determine the fate of your soul. People don’t enjoy equal opportunities, true, but we’ll only be judged for the decisions we could’ve made during our stories.

  “You say struggling makes life worthless, I believe the opposite is the truth. Hard times are the greatest opportunities to make choices that define us. Persisting, fighting back when all you want to do is give up… that’s when we find the greatest rewards. It doesn’t matter if we succeed or fail. To try to overcome our hardships is the purpose.”

  Skye felt as though someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over his head. He stood motionless, drenched in doubt. That couldn’t be true. To say he didn’t have to succeed was to claim it was acceptable for his loved ones to die. And yet… there was a strange comfort in believing it wasn’t his responsibility to save everyone, just to try.

  He could do that. He could try to save Troqua, to put his life on the line for that purpose.

  His heartbeat slowed, and the tension in his muscles eased. For the first time in what seemed like hours, he managed a steady breath.

  “You astronomical fool!” Redeyes roared, his fiery face inches from Skye’s. “Don’t tell me you believe this ‘next life’ load of coal! You have but this one! Gideom died to give you a chance to save everyone! To live! If you fail, everyone will die, and it’d be your bloody fault!”

  Skye’s calm shattered, his pulse quickened. “Who will hold trial?” he asked, voice trembling. “You said we’ll be judged. Who casts the verdict?”

  “We know the judge as Lahūtum,” Ku replied. “He made our souls, created fantasia and everything else in this Dunya.”

  Skye frowned. “And where is this Lahūtum now? If he’s so capable, why doesn’t he stop the wardens?”

  “A fair trial demands freedom to choose,” Ku said, leaning forward. “The wardens are not the first to commit evil, nor will they be the last. Like all before them, they will eventually perish and face trial at the Twin Gates. And where there are great rewards, there are also severe punishments.”

  “But why doesn’t he stop them before?” Skye asked, voice growing hoarse as he wiped his eyes. “Why do innocents have to die? What’s the point of a creator who just watches and waits?”

  “Stopping evil is our responsibility, our trial,” Ku said firmly. “Just like how every disease can be cured, and every curse be broken, every act of evil can be stopped. The means to achieve our goals exist, we simply have to find them. That’s the reason you left your city, isn’t it?”

  Redeyes threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, you could have stopped the wardens in the cave, you just failed to find the means!” He leaned closer, his imaginary flames almost hot. “He’s a loon. He’s mocking you.”

  “What means do I have?” Skye could no longer contain his frustration. He summoned his bell and watched indifferently as Ku’s hair bristled, his milky eyes growing sharper, his grimace widening to reveal his fangs. “A bell that makes everyone distrust me? I can merge with chairs? How does he expect me to stop the wardens with these worthless powers?”

  Ku rose slowly, his gaze steady. “I don’t have all the answers, but I know they exist,” he said. “As long as you draw breath, you’re under trial. I used to have a student who was trapped in a desperate situation much like yours—“

  “I don’t want any more of your stupid stories!” Skye interrupted, shouting. “I want solutions!”

  Luccello fluttered angrily. “Have faith lad, what do you want us to tell you? That everything will be fine? That we can wave a wand, utter some spells and everything would turn dandy? Well, it won’t. Life is hard. It is not meant to be won; it is a trial meant to push you to your limits and test your mettle. Many fail before they start. Many fail at the finish line.”

  Master Ku nodded sagely as though Luccello had shared something intelligent. “Do not make the mistake of focusing all your energies on stopping your enemies. Sometimes, your own fears and desires are the biggest hurdle to success.”

  “This is a bloody farce!” Skye yelled, half-laughing, half-crying. “This Lahūtum is a joke, and you’re the biggest coalhead I’ve ever met!”

  “Finally. You tell him!” Redeyes hissed triumphantly.

  The birds screeched, their feathers puffing dangerously. Luccello demanded an apology. Pairi cooed disapprovingly, while Ka’ib’s shadowy wings flared as his yellow eyes burned with rage. Rico swelled to twice his size, hopping furiously, shouting, “Bad monkey! Bad!”

  Redeyes grinned. “The old fool thinks himself wise. Want to see what happens if we test his means?”

  Skye turned to the door, not caring to continue this pointless discussion. This time, he didn’t stop as the birds squawked in protest.

  “Let him go,” Ku ordered as Skye stepped outside. “No one can hold him back.”